


Love is Mistletoe

by ProwlingThunder



Category: Space Pirate Captain Harlock (2019)
Genre: Desperate for Forgiveness, Forgiveness, Gen, Introspection, Loyalty, Loyalty over Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:00:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28468668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: Loyalty,Mom had said,is not love. Love is different. Love can kill you, if you let it; it can strangle those you care for. It can swallow you, and tear you apart from the inside. Which isn't to say it isn't beautiful or wonderful or precious. Love is... mistletoe. It flowers and blooms, and it only grows bigger with each passing year, so long as it has something to feed off. But mistletoe can kill you, if you eat it.





	Love is Mistletoe

Logan had never met his father. Mom had never mentioned the man to him or Ezra, and it wasn't until after Mom had died that Logan started realizing just how much she had never spoken, but it wasn't until after the accident that he had started realizing just how much the silence had said.

Mom had said a lot, long before he had known how to listen. She had imparted years of knowledge onto him and Ezra, without using the words. 

Mom had been a botanist, a woman teasing life into the dead soil of Mars. That had been her dream. Now, aboard the Arcadia, after visiting Earth, Logan wondered how much of it had really been about Mars. He wondered about so much Mom had said, back when he and Ezra were kids. Things like love, and loyalty, and sticking together no matter what.

The words Mom had said, clear and crisp in his childhood, had been the root of much Logan had done in his life. He had always tried to live by her words; not to never do anything he might regret, but to never regret anything he would do. Never to give his loyalty away to the first bidder-- and Mom had been big on loyalty, true, but the lesson had always struck with him the most, there in her garden. 

_Loyalty_ , Mom had said, _is not love. Love is different. Love can kill you, if you let it; it can strangle those you care for. It can swallow you, and tear you apart from the inside. Which isn't to say it isn't beautiful or wonderful or precious. Love is... mistletoe. It flowers and blooms, and it only grows bigger with each passing year, so long as it has something to feed off. But mistletoe can kill you, if you eat it._

_But loyalty is the most beautiful thing, because love just happens, but loyalty... Loyalty is a choice._

Logan had always loved Nami, he guessed. Like a parasite, they had just grew together. But Nami had married Ezra; Ezra, who had a stable job in the military and was moving up in the world. No one had any doubts he would make it to the top of the command bracket; he might even get a seat on the Gaia Coalition's Counsel. And Logan loved Ezra, the love of two brothers raised together, so close they might have been one person.

But he had been loyal to Ezra, too. He had never taken Nami to bed, even though he loved her. Even though he'd had his chances, every time Ezra was out on deployment. He'd longed every time he saw her that she had picked him instead, but every time he saw Ezra look at her, he just seemed so heartbreakingly happy...

The accident-- Logan's foolishness-- had ruined everything. He hadn't thought it through-- it was the only thing he had ever regretted in his whole life, because it had destroyed so much. The greenhouses, the labs; those were all things. They could be rebuilt, plants could be regrown. Yet for all that science had advanced since Pre-Space Earth, the explosion had quite neatly stolen Ezra's legs and his career, had ruined Nami's body to the point she had to be on life support. The artificial projections, her digital interface, that helped her interact with the world, but it still wasn't life.

Logan had done all that, in a moment of blind frustration. He thought Mom would have been disappointed in him for that. She had always been telling them to look out for each other. She would have known how he could fix it the right way, though; she would have helped him figure it out.

But Mom was dead, and he had broken Ezra's trust in him, the loyalty between brothers. His loyalty had never wavered-- he _would_ make it up to Ezra, make it up to Nami, he would figure out how to fix it somehow-- but Ezra...

Ezra never forgave him. Logan thought that perhaps he hadn't noticed because he had never forgiven himself for it, that he had overlooked Ezra's growing hate while trying to make up for his errors.

He would have done anything.

That was why the Infinity Clock had seemed like such a good idea, at first. If it worked, he could start over, never cause the accident in the first place. And if it failed-- well. The worst thing that could happen was that it didn't work.


End file.
